Thermal desorption of water ice in the interstellar medium

Helen J Fraser, Mark P Collings, M R S McCoustra, David A Williams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

267 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Water (H2O) ice is an important solid constituent of many astrophysical environments. To comprehend the role of such ices in the chemistry and evolution of dense molecular clouds and comets, it is necessary to understand the freeze-out, potential surface reactivity and desorption mechanisms of such molecular systems. Consequently, there is a real need from within the astronomical modelling community for accurate empirical molecular data pertaining to these processes. Here we give the first results of a laboratory programme to provide such data. Measurements of the thermal desorption of H2O ice, under interstellar conditions, are presented. For ice deposited under conditions that realistically min-tic those in a dense molecular cloud, the thermal desorption of thin films (much less than 50 molecular layers) is found to occur with zeroth-order kinetics characterized by a surface binding energy, E-des, of 5773 +/- 60 K, and a pre-exponential factor, A, of 10(30 +/-2) molecules cm(-2) s(-1). These results imply that, in the dense interstellar medium, thermal desorption of H2O ice will occur at significantly higher temperatures than has previously been assumed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1165-1172
Number of pages8
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume327
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2001

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